


Young And Menace.

by reidbyers



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Drug Abuse, F/M, Reader-Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-10-25 02:53:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10755243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reidbyers/pseuds/reidbyers
Summary: After the trauma resulting after Tobias Hankel’s kidnap of Spencer, he decided to go back home and seek help from the one person who he knew would understand the problems he was having with Dilaudid.





	Young And Menace.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was originally posted on my tumblr "sapphicpage" so go check me out there!

Growing up Spencer was told he could do anything he wanted in life, with that smart brain and pretty face he was bound to be successful. That was comforting to hear, if he could do anything then he could find a cure for his mother’s Schizophrenia and find away to fix their broken family. That was all he really wanted and when it became clear that those were things out of his control, his ambitions soon dwindled away like blowing out a candle.

Eventually though he found what he wanted to do, help other people. If he couldn’t help his mother directly then he was going to help as many people as possible until the feeling of guilt disappeared. For a while it worked, he enjoyed working alongside the FBI and aiding them in studying serial killers and finding the patterns to help catch them. It stimulated him intellectually, a challenge was needed and it was offered here.

Things took a change though when an unsub with Dissociative Identity Disorder kidnapped Spencer and tortured him, it was terrifying and possibly the most stressful few days of Spencer’s life but the silver lining to the bleak situation was the Dilaudid.

It gave him a chance to look back on his life, the bests and the worsts. He recalled all the sweet moments with his mother swiftly followed by the worst, watching her get dragged away after getting her committed. Other memories came back to him too, ones he had tried so desperately to forget or at least not think about. The horrors of high school, being stripped naked and laughed at, the countless times being beaten up.

Then came back the memories of you. Years had gone since Spencer had even thought about you, the days spent in the underpass smoking cigarettes and talking about life. You and Spencer were the cleverest students in the whole university, he hadn’t expected to find another person to had been let in despite being a year or two too young but here you were. There couldn’t have been more a difference, he was a classic good boy with his eyes set on the PhD and you were there to learn, in the end you didn’t care about whether you got the degree because you knew for a matter of fact you were never getting out of Las Vegas.

The cigarettes soon turned into drugs, cocaine mostly. Spencer was there to watch as you would indulge, he never took part but would be there when you would do a line and get a hit of euphoria. He should have known better, it was just so lonely and he didn’t want you to leave him because he showed a distaste to your drug habit. Besides, it was all for fun. Watching you become so happy and full of life was amazing to see, Spencer knew you deserved to be happy.

Whatever happiness you were feeling the first few times eventually disappeared, once the tremors began and the constant anxiety. Spencer tried to help, tried taking the drugs away, taking you to a rehab centre, he tried anything he could think of. One day he went into class and noticed you weren’t there, upon asking where you were he learnt you had chosen drop out.

That was the last time he saw you, when he left Las Vegas and moved over to Virginia he tried to check up on you, leaving tens of voicemails on your phone to just answer him, let him you were alive at least. After nothing came from that, Spencer decided you didn’t want to hear from him and vowed to not disturb you again.

After being rescued by his team Spencer snuck the rest of the Dilaudid from Tobias’ pocket without anyone noticing. He needed an escape from what had just happened to him, the more sober he was the worse the thoughts were, he worried that if they kept getting worse then he would have to find a permanent way to stop them.

He needed a break, being surrounded by so many cases involving drugs was doing nothing but making his mental health worse. It was then that he asked Gideon if he could have some days off, he had noticed something was off and allowed Spencer a week. But after that they needed him back, he was a crucial part of the team.

So on the next flight available Spencer hopped on the plane and flew back to Las Vegas, his Dilaudid in his carry on bag. It would have been easier to leave the bottles at home instead of explaining that he had a “heart condition” and the Dilaudid was for the pain, they believed him thankfully but the anxiety that remained while on the flight didn’t seem worth it. He didn’t know what he was going to do when he got back home, he just needed to be somewhere familiar, away from everything that had happened.

First he visited his mother, it was always heartbreaking seeing her there with her nose buried in a book, similar to the way she would be back when she was at home. She was much happier back then, safer now though.

“Why are you here, Spencer?” She asked after Spencer sat through almost an hour and a half of her stories, usually he visited when she could help him on a case. His letters were constant but actual face to face contact? It felt like years.

“I’m just visiting, I wanted to see you.” Spencer reached toward and took her hand in his, he already knew she could sense something was wrong. She always did say that a mother knows things, they know when something is wrong with their child but he couldn’t let her know about this.

“No there’s more than that, who else is there?”

Spencer pursed his lips, maybe there was another reason he had come back. He stayed quiet until he gathered his thoughts, Diana would know if he was lying so there was no point in trying to play it off as anything but what it truly was.

“Mom, do you remember (Y/N)?” You had only met his mother once, you had stopped by her house in the hopes that Spencer would be there. As soon as you mentioned his name she began gushing about her son, how talented and smart he was. By the time Spencer arrived back you had a photo album on your lap and a smug look on your face.

“(Y/N)…I think so. That girl with the tired eyes, the one who liked you.” Spencer smiled at the description, remembering the way you almost constantly looked like you had just been awoken from a long night’s sleep.

“Yes, my friend-”

“Oh she was more than a friend, Spencer.” Diana laughed and petted his hand, Spencer noticed the slight tremors in her hand but put it down to the medication she was on. He frowned at what she was hinting at, wondering where she would get that idea from.

Spencer wasn’t stupid, he thought you were very attractive both in your appearance and personality but nothing romantic had ever happened between the two of you. He thought your relationship was strictly platonic, nothing ever disproved that.

“What do you mean?” Spencer moved his foot to press up against his bag, reassured that it was still there which meant the bottles were still there. Just knowing that they were close brought him comfort, it also brought him fear that he was quickly becoming reliant.

“Spencer, please. You looked at that girl like she was the most beautiful thing you’d ever seen, you couldn’t hide that.”

Even when Spencer said his goodbyes and started making his way back to the hotel he was staying at her words kept replaying in his head. Maybe she was right, he was so in deep that he was prepared to do anything to keep you happy. Even if that thing that was keeping you happy was slowly destroying you.

He stopped walking in the middle of the sidewalk and looked down at his phone, scrolling until he found your number in his contact, it had been years and you had probably changed your number but it was worth a shot.

Hi, it’s Spencer. I’m back in Vegas for a week, do you want to catch up?

Underpass, twenty minutes. Before I change my mind.

Your quick reply shocked Spencer and he immediately turned round and started heading the right way, it had been years but he still knew his way around like it was only yesterday. It took him fifteen minutes to arrive, it was dirtier and far more graffiti covering the walls but still familiar.

His eyes quickly fell on you who was leaning up against the wall, your hair was shorter now and your face actually had some colour to it. The years had done nothing but age you well, Spencer didn’t know if he could say the same for himself but you had only got more beautiful. By the looks of things you were already there when you sent the text, knowing that Spencer would come running.

“Hi.” Spencer said softly once he walked up to you, the sound of his voice made your head pop up in his direction. He couldn’t read your expression, you were always good at hiding your feelings.

“What are you doing back here?” You couldn’t blame Spencer for leaving all those years ago, he had such a bright future ahead of him he couldn’t sit around and wait for you to stop craving drugs more than his friendship. It still hurt though, you wanted to feel special and him leaving only solidified that you weren’t.

Spencer’s hand tightened around the strap of his bag, not sure if he should tell you the reason he flew across the country out of the blue. If anyone was to understand it would be you but after years of no contact he didn’t want to make you think that’s all he thought you were, a once upon a time drug addict.

“I…It’s a long story.”

That answer wasn’t good enough, you crossed your arms over your chest and raised an eyebrow at him. Clearly he wanted to talk about it but whatever it was, it was too hard. The thought that something bad had happened made your stomach twist, you didn’t want to care but you couldn’t help it. All those years ago you were outsiders, only having each other to turn to when things turned to shit. If that was still the case, you couldn’t turn away.

“(Y/N)…why did you start taking cocaine?” Spencer asked hesitantly.

“I was just being a menace, I thought that taking drugs would make me special in someway. Francis Crick discovered the double helix structure of DNA while high on LSD, so why couldn’t I do something similar.” You shrugged, while you were telling the truth there was also so much more.Too much, you didn’t want to go into details when Spencer wouldn’t even tell you why he was back.

“Make a huge scientific discovery? (Y/N) drugs aren’t going to do the thinking for you, it takes a lot of hard work.”

“Did you fly all the way over here to lecture me? I’m clean, Spencer. Haven’t touched the stuff in years, you’d have known that if you had stayed.” You snapped and clenched your fists either side of you, when he left you weren’t ready yet to speak to him so never did you get to say goodbye or even ask him to say. Harbouring all those hurt feelings after so many years was unhealthy but bad habits like that seemed to be attracted to you.

Spencer couldn’t fit his mouth around the words, he hadn’t truly admitted it to himself yet and here he was seeking you out for help. With a shaking hand he reached in his bag and fumbled about until he found the small glass bottles, he extended his hand out and gave them to you.

Out of all the things running through your mind, a drug problem wasn’t one of them. Dilaudid wasn’t the worst of the worst, it was cocaine or heroin but it nasty nonetheless. You rolled the small bottles in your palms and tried to think what on earth happened to make Spencer fall to this level.

“FBI agent with a drug addiction, that’s one for the movies Spence.” Spencer almost smiled at the use of the old nickname, he’d forgotten how before JJ you had coined that name for him. “Are you on right now?”

“No, no. I went and saw my mom, she can’t see me like that.” His demeanour quickly changed, he became almost upset that you had even thought he would do something like that. Even though he was struggling, there was no way he was going to take anything and let that be the one thing his mother ended up remembering about him.

You nodded before slipping the bottles into your pocket, Spencer watched your movements and you saw him almost tell you to give them back. You’d been clean now from your own drug addiction for four years, things never returned to the way they were beforehand but you had a life now, one you were proud of and you weren’t going to let Spencer throw his away.

“What happened?” Spencer swallowed uncomfortably and watched as you went and sat down against the wall, he hesitated before going and sitting beside you. Flashbacks of sharing a cigarette and quizzing each other on biotechnology, old punk-rock music blasting from the mp3 player you stole from your older brother.

“I was working on a case involving a serial killer murdering people in their homes then uploading the videos of his crimes to the internet. When me and a co worker went to went to visit a potential suspect, he threatened me at gunpoint before knocking me out.”

“Oh my god.” You whispered, of course working with the FBI could lead to being in dangerous situations but you never thought it could happen to Spencer.

“When I woke up I was in an unfamiliar place, tied up and alone with the suspect. He suffered with Dissociative Identity Disorder leading him to believe he was also his father and an archangel.” Spencer almost wanted to laugh at how ridiculous the whole thing sounded but he couldn’t, he could still smell the fish being burned and the cold wood against his feet. “He used Dilaudid to put me under, said it would make everything better. I kept having these vivid flashbacks of my mom, my dad leaving… you.”

Hearing Spencer’s voice crack like that almost brought you to tears, he could have died at any moment and he was thinking about you, it was almost poetic if it wasn’t so horrific what he went through.

“Spencer, I…I’m so sorry.” What else was there to say? No one deserved what he went through, he was using the drugs to escape from the trauma he was experiencing and you didn’t blame him. If you had been in that situation there wouldn’t be even Dilaudid in the world to cure the pain.

“I can’t stop, I-I need help.” Spencer sniveled weakly before dropping his head, his hair coming down to cover his face which was probably for the best so no one could see his tears. Having to be strong, put on a brave face and pretend like recovering was coming along well was exhausting. There were professionals who could help with this but he wasn’t ready to let go yet, it was all good and well saying he would quit but that didn’t mean anything when he had to carry around bottles like a safety blanket.

“Whatever you need, I’m not letting you go through this alone.” Even though years of being angry at Spencer for leaving had gone by, he was still the one person who understood you, now better than ever. He was your best friend, the only thing worth coming back to reality for. If he needed you, then you were going to do whatever it took to make sure he wouldn’t fall down the same road you did.

You took Spencer into your arms, softly at first because you knew how he could be with touch but when he collapsed into you, chest heaving and the most sorrowful sobs you’d ever heard escaping his lips you held him tighter. You couldn’t fix his problem in a week, or even a month but you’d waited years for him to come back to you; he was here now and you weren’t going to waste a second of that time.


End file.
